Question: How does Isaiah describe the gathering of Israel?
Answer: The gathering of Israel is an integral part of Israel’s end-time restoration. It takes the form of a literal, physical exodus of elect remnants of Israel’s twelve tribes from among all nations at the onset of a worldwide destruction: “I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, Give up! to the south, Withhold not! Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth—all who are called by my name, whom I have formed, molded and wrought for my own glory.” (Isaiah 43:5–7)
The new exodus is initiated by God’s end-time servant, the Lord’s (right) “hand” and “ensign”:
“In that day my Lord will again raise his hand to reclaim the remnant of his people—those who shall be left out of Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the islands of the sea. He will raise the ensign to the nations and assemble the exiled of Israel; he will gather the scattered of Judah from the four directions of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:11–12);
“In that day the sprig of Jesse, who stands for an ensign to the peoples, shall be sought by the Gentiles, and his rest shall be glorious.” (Isaiah 11:10); “Jehovah will dry up the tongue of the Egyptian Sea by his mighty wind; he will extend his hand over the River and smite it into seven streams to provide a way on foot. And there shall be a pathway out of Assyria for the remnant of his people who shall be left, as there was for Israel when it came up from the land of Egypt.” (Isaiah 11:15–16)
Spiritual “kings” and “queens” of the (Ephraimite) Gentiles who attain the level of seraphim or translated beings assist in gathering God’s elect: “I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, raise my ensign to the peoples; and they will bring your sons in their bosoms and carry your daughters on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers, queens your nursing mothers.” (Isaiah 49:22–23); “He will send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matthew 24:31; cf. 3 Nephi 28:30)
At the servant’s sound of the trumpet—as God’s Day of Judgment commences—the seraph-servants gather the house of Israel to Zion and to Jerusalem: “In that day Jehovah will thresh out [his harvest] from the torrent of the River to the streams of Egypt. But you shall be gleaned one by one, O children of Israel. In that day a loud trumpet shall sound, and they who were lost in the land of Assyria and they who were outcasts in the land of Egypt shall come and bow down to Jehovah in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 27:12–13);
The new exodus, however, will go largely unnoticed: “Go forth out of Babylon, flee from Chaldea! Make this announcement with resounding voice; broadcast it to the end of the earth. Say, Jehovah has redeemed his servant Jacob. They thirsted not when he led them through arid places: he caused water to flow for them from the rock; he cleaved the rock and water gushed out.” (Isaiah 48:20–21); “The righteous disappear, and no man gives it a thought; the godly are gathered out, but no one perceives that from impending calamity the righteous are withdrawn.” (Isaiah 57:1)
